Thursday, January 09, 2014

Phoenix Preacher, contra Vision Casting

The whole thing is a worthwhile read but there's a particular quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that comes up:

He who loves this dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

It sounds like Bonhoeffer but I didn't catch which work it was when I read the post. I'm still working through Schlatter's not-for-laity commentary on Romans and looking to crack open some Spurgeon on the Psalms.

But the quote attributed to Bonhoeffer sticks with me because it's often seemed as though somebody who says he's a nobody likes to talk about how much he loves his community and over the last fourteen years or so it's seemed that, as time goes by, he really loves his idea of that Christian community significantly more than the actual community itself. You cast your vision and if people don't climb on board you move on, right? And despite having name-dropped Bonhoeffer as a favorite over the years ...